I am usually a very competent, confident person. I am used to living alone, and I am used to getting things done. And maybe because of that people tend to think that I have a very hard skin and don't really take offense. The truth is that I have a really hard time dealing with guilt, and when I feel like I've done something wrong I tend to fixate on it and spend hours or days worrying about it. I also withdraw, and make absurd vows not to interact with friends/new people/colleagues lest I also offend them.
Which is to say that I entirely accidentally offended someone, and I feel awful (not on the internets but IRL). And I'm trying to figure out how to manage my feelings of guilt. For example, I still have a few thank you notes to write and I feel awful about it, but the longer they wait the more I feel like they have to be perfect and the less chance that I'll sit down and finish them. Or e-mails which have been in my in-box for more than a week. Just like a 3rd grader, you note. I know. It's not exactly the most mature thing, but I'm trying to write/think about it here because I really don't want what happened to ruin JD's last week here in Europe (he leaves on Sunday ...). And I'm trying to overcome this new anxiety that my lack of social graces will be a problem this year and the fusspot will land up spending her entire weekend and every evening alone with me in our (gorgeous!) new apartment because I can't manage social interactions. I'm sure I'm overreacting, but just wondering if anyone else deals with these overwhelming feelings of social failure?
(please don't worry about me too much - long time readers will know I get over these thing eventually, and I don't really hold to my vows to sit it out alone at home for long. And yes, I have of course already apologized but that did not make me feel any better).
ps - It might also not have helped my mood that the fusspot was sent home early from daycare for refusing to eat from a bottle ... nothing like dumping 16 oz. of breastmilk down the sink to cheer you up (since we were gone for the weekend I had to delve into the freezer stash for daycare today. The fusspot of course happily ate straight from the source all afternoon and evening).
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
wow
On the very same morning I read that Ms. Peesticks is now Mama Peesticks, and my most loyal reader (ever!) is back online.
Please send them your congrats/welcome back.
Please send them your congrats/welcome back.
Back in 4 days
at which point the fusspot will have visited 7 countries in 6.5 months (not counting the U.S., of course).
We're off to Berlin for a romantic weekend.
On Monday morning we get the keys to our apartment for the year - so Monday is moving day 2.0. Then I have a full week of work (and hopefully a few romantic dinners) and then JD leaves and the fusspot and I will be all alone. Gulp.
ps - Click over to Mission Impossible for a really funny baby food story. I read it and remembered that I wanted to note my total zen tonight when I handed my baby to a friend/acquaintance who had never met her before (although she did go on a 5-day bike trip with me when I was, oh, say about 6 weeks pregnant), turned to greet someone new, and turned back to notice that the woman holding my baby had sat down and was merrily holding a strawberry for my fusspot to lick/eat (for the record, the only foods I have fed her thus far are asparagus and peas, as per the 4-day per new food guideline). Rather than express my normal American obsessiveness, I calmly turned around, repeated my mantra ("They have healthy, beautiful children here") and when I next glanced over my fusspot had moved on to gumming the far safer and less-allergen-prone carrots. Beats me what she gummed inbetween but thus far no signs of a reaction.
We're off to Berlin for a romantic weekend.
On Monday morning we get the keys to our apartment for the year - so Monday is moving day 2.0. Then I have a full week of work (and hopefully a few romantic dinners) and then JD leaves and the fusspot and I will be all alone. Gulp.
ps - Click over to Mission Impossible for a really funny baby food story. I read it and remembered that I wanted to note my total zen tonight when I handed my baby to a friend/acquaintance who had never met her before (although she did go on a 5-day bike trip with me when I was, oh, say about 6 weeks pregnant), turned to greet someone new, and turned back to notice that the woman holding my baby had sat down and was merrily holding a strawberry for my fusspot to lick/eat (for the record, the only foods I have fed her thus far are asparagus and peas, as per the 4-day per new food guideline). Rather than express my normal American obsessiveness, I calmly turned around, repeated my mantra ("They have healthy, beautiful children here") and when I next glanced over my fusspot had moved on to gumming the far safer and less-allergen-prone carrots. Beats me what she gummed inbetween but thus far no signs of a reaction.
Sleep
Deep in conversation yesterday evening with a breastfeeding, co-sleeping, working mother of four and she asks about the fusspot's sleep schedule. The truth is that she's regressed a lot in the past month. We put her down at 8 pm and she's up by midnight for a snack and then usually eats 3-4 more times before I get up at 8 am. Yes, that's something like a snack every 2 hours from midnight on. And rather than gasp in horror, this woman looked at me and said:
"Does it bother you? Are you functioning ok?"
Which is, in my mind at least, the most appropriate question. And the answer at the moment is yes. I'm hoping that her daycare will put her on a more regular nap schedule and that she will get used to the big changes of the month (finger foods, sitting up, moving to Europe, daycare ...) but in the meantime I'm just not that interested/willing to make any drastic changes or even to commit to the little responsible parenting tactics like putting my baby to bed at the same time every night (to clarify, supermom invited me to come over and chat after her children were all in bed - so I didn't show up till 8 pm and the fusspot and I didn't make it home until 10:30 pm).
In other baby news, we talked about about baby lead weaning (which has almost nothing to do with weaning at the moment and everything to do with feeding babies finger and table foods over purees) and I am sold. And I also had a long conversation on the beach with another ex-pat about elimination training, and I'm ready to get started on that.
The funny thing about the woman on the beach, is that we started talking because of ... our ergos (and yes, the fusspot and I were playing hooky from work for the afternoon and went for a walk on the gorgeous, sandy beach about 20 minutes from our little town). There is no distribution/sales of Ergos in Europe at the moment so whenever you see one out and about you know that the mother is an American or Canadian or has a good friend in one of those places. It is a great way to find the ex-pats here (not that I'm avoiding the locals but they are notoriously unfriendly). It's funny because back when JD and I were young and backpacking through Europe we tried to avoid American-brand sneakers and a few other key items so that we could blend in more. Now I proudly wear my American-brand Ergo as a way to meet other American moms and ask them all of my key questions like: what laundry detergent do you use here??? We're still on a quest to find an enzyme and perfume free detergent which also cleans cloth diapers.
"Does it bother you? Are you functioning ok?"
Which is, in my mind at least, the most appropriate question. And the answer at the moment is yes. I'm hoping that her daycare will put her on a more regular nap schedule and that she will get used to the big changes of the month (finger foods, sitting up, moving to Europe, daycare ...) but in the meantime I'm just not that interested/willing to make any drastic changes or even to commit to the little responsible parenting tactics like putting my baby to bed at the same time every night (to clarify, supermom invited me to come over and chat after her children were all in bed - so I didn't show up till 8 pm and the fusspot and I didn't make it home until 10:30 pm).
In other baby news, we talked about about baby lead weaning (which has almost nothing to do with weaning at the moment and everything to do with feeding babies finger and table foods over purees) and I am sold. And I also had a long conversation on the beach with another ex-pat about elimination training, and I'm ready to get started on that.
The funny thing about the woman on the beach, is that we started talking because of ... our ergos (and yes, the fusspot and I were playing hooky from work for the afternoon and went for a walk on the gorgeous, sandy beach about 20 minutes from our little town). There is no distribution/sales of Ergos in Europe at the moment so whenever you see one out and about you know that the mother is an American or Canadian or has a good friend in one of those places. It is a great way to find the ex-pats here (not that I'm avoiding the locals but they are notoriously unfriendly). It's funny because back when JD and I were young and backpacking through Europe we tried to avoid American-brand sneakers and a few other key items so that we could blend in more. Now I proudly wear my American-brand Ergo as a way to meet other American moms and ask them all of my key questions like: what laundry detergent do you use here??? We're still on a quest to find an enzyme and perfume free detergent which also cleans cloth diapers.
Monday, June 22, 2009
I did it
I left my daughter at daycare this morning ... even though she was at that very moment screaming her head out as part of her first-ever cry it out naptime routine. Yes, they put the babies (swaddled, with pacifiers - permission slip necessary if you want them on their stomach) into their cribs, start a little music, and then close the door.
The daycare worker (I will think of nicknames since there are only two, and both seem like potential American Idol competitors - think lots of style for working in a daycare) put the fusspot down and when she screamed for about 2 minutes asked if this was normal for her. I retrieved her, fed her, and then put her down again. I mean, where to start?
- She doesn't actually sleep in her crib that much - she's usually in bed with us
- We almost never set her down fully awake
- She always has an adult sitting next to her until she falls asleep
- I often nurse her to sleep, even during naptimes
- Her nanny would routinely hold her and rock her for her entire nap
In short, rockstar wanna-be with big hoop earrings, this is not normal for her because she's never been in this situation before.
But I really do trust that she will be ok and she will get sufficient attachment parenting from me to have her ever-so-delicate ego (at least according to the Sears-school) intact. And I am quite sure that she will be safe at this particular daycare, which is of course the most important thing. And of course, in the long run she will be a happier kid for having a happy mother with a career.
So Daycare Dilemna #1: 4 or 5 days a week?
I had planned to put the fusspot in daycare 5 days a week, but upon arrival here I found out that the place where I work is only open for 4 hours on Mondays (hence sitting home on a Monday morning after dropping the fusspot). And while it would be wonderful to drop the fusspot and have 4 full hours a week to myself (remember I'll be a single working mother here in Europe), I am suddenly not sure it's worth the price. The cost has gone up slightly since November and the exchange rate has gotten significantly worse and suddenly I'm looking at $90 per day for daycare. Ninety dollars. It's a fortune. It is actually the same amount that many women pay their NYC nannies per hour, but you are required to pay 8 am to 6 pm every day that you opt in, which is a 10-hour day. And the exchange rate doesn't help, nor does the fact that employers here pay at least 50% of the daycare costs and then the rest is a tax deduction, so there are very few price-sensitive working mothers combined with a huge shortage of infant daycare spots, and I don't really see us having much flexibility. And JD made it even worse by noting that the $4000 or so I'd save this year by going to 4 days a week would get us a good part of the way towards cycling again. But then, am I crazy to give up my only opportunity to read/run errands/take a nap/make babyfood during daylight hours without the fusspot in tow?
The daycare worker (I will think of nicknames since there are only two, and both seem like potential American Idol competitors - think lots of style for working in a daycare) put the fusspot down and when she screamed for about 2 minutes asked if this was normal for her. I retrieved her, fed her, and then put her down again. I mean, where to start?
- She doesn't actually sleep in her crib that much - she's usually in bed with us
- We almost never set her down fully awake
- She always has an adult sitting next to her until she falls asleep
- I often nurse her to sleep, even during naptimes
- Her nanny would routinely hold her and rock her for her entire nap
In short, rockstar wanna-be with big hoop earrings, this is not normal for her because she's never been in this situation before.
But I really do trust that she will be ok and she will get sufficient attachment parenting from me to have her ever-so-delicate ego (at least according to the Sears-school) intact. And I am quite sure that she will be safe at this particular daycare, which is of course the most important thing. And of course, in the long run she will be a happier kid for having a happy mother with a career.
So Daycare Dilemna #1: 4 or 5 days a week?
I had planned to put the fusspot in daycare 5 days a week, but upon arrival here I found out that the place where I work is only open for 4 hours on Mondays (hence sitting home on a Monday morning after dropping the fusspot). And while it would be wonderful to drop the fusspot and have 4 full hours a week to myself (remember I'll be a single working mother here in Europe), I am suddenly not sure it's worth the price. The cost has gone up slightly since November and the exchange rate has gotten significantly worse and suddenly I'm looking at $90 per day for daycare. Ninety dollars. It's a fortune. It is actually the same amount that many women pay their NYC nannies per hour, but you are required to pay 8 am to 6 pm every day that you opt in, which is a 10-hour day. And the exchange rate doesn't help, nor does the fact that employers here pay at least 50% of the daycare costs and then the rest is a tax deduction, so there are very few price-sensitive working mothers combined with a huge shortage of infant daycare spots, and I don't really see us having much flexibility. And JD made it even worse by noting that the $4000 or so I'd save this year by going to 4 days a week would get us a good part of the way towards cycling again. But then, am I crazy to give up my only opportunity to read/run errands/take a nap/make babyfood during daylight hours without the fusspot in tow?
Friday, June 19, 2009
Food (again)
Thank you so much for all your comments and suggestions on the food issue. I really appreciate them.
Just to give you a sense of what I'm working with here, this is a fairly standard size fridge/freezer combo around here (the jam is there for scale - we do not freeze our jam. We may stop even putting it in the fridge ...). Definitely more akin to a cute dorm fridge designed for the cooling of beer than for the storage of a week's supply of baby food, especially given that my freezer stash in NYC would have filled this freezer:
Item 2: Buying premade baby food. I spent another half hour browsing the baby food section at the supermarket. There was not a single jar under a euro, which comes out to about $1.40 given the exchange rate. Per jar. And I haven't even been to the organic store (which I just found) to price baby food there. But saying I wanted to offer the fusspot 2 different flavors at two meals per day, we're looking at $5.60 a day at the very minimum (presuming she never refuses a food, for example). Oh, and there was also not a single jar with less than 8 ingredients making the American recommendation of starting one item at a time practically impossible if I use store-bought baby food.
Item 3: The daycare will give the fusspot bottles as long as I bring them "ready to go" (i.e. no frozen bottles, no freezer bags of milk - I'm pretty sure that's standard even in the U.S.) and they will feed her whatever the other babies and toddlers are eating. On Thursday when we visited they were having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (these sandwiches were broken into bite-sized pieces for most of the kids). In the under-two room. If you happen to be American and just gasped at such a revelation (and I should stop and note here that this daycare is the only one in my little city to receive a PERFECT score on the safety rating review least you wonder what type of shoddy/haphazard daycare I've chosen), you understand my hesitation about letting the daycare feed her too soon. I did not really press the issue yet, but I'm guessing that the teachers (who watch 10 children at a time) will not be up for microwaving frozen baby food.
Hence my recent interest in all sorts of non-frozen finger foods I can pack for the fusspot. And my commitment to repeat the mantra "They have beautiful, healthy babies here. They have beautiful, healthy babies here." Before freaking out, of course.
Just to give you a sense of what I'm working with here, this is a fairly standard size fridge/freezer combo around here (the jam is there for scale - we do not freeze our jam. We may stop even putting it in the fridge ...). Definitely more akin to a cute dorm fridge designed for the cooling of beer than for the storage of a week's supply of baby food, especially given that my freezer stash in NYC would have filled this freezer:
Item 2: Buying premade baby food. I spent another half hour browsing the baby food section at the supermarket. There was not a single jar under a euro, which comes out to about $1.40 given the exchange rate. Per jar. And I haven't even been to the organic store (which I just found) to price baby food there. But saying I wanted to offer the fusspot 2 different flavors at two meals per day, we're looking at $5.60 a day at the very minimum (presuming she never refuses a food, for example). Oh, and there was also not a single jar with less than 8 ingredients making the American recommendation of starting one item at a time practically impossible if I use store-bought baby food.
Item 3: The daycare will give the fusspot bottles as long as I bring them "ready to go" (i.e. no frozen bottles, no freezer bags of milk - I'm pretty sure that's standard even in the U.S.) and they will feed her whatever the other babies and toddlers are eating. On Thursday when we visited they were having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (these sandwiches were broken into bite-sized pieces for most of the kids). In the under-two room. If you happen to be American and just gasped at such a revelation (and I should stop and note here that this daycare is the only one in my little city to receive a PERFECT score on the safety rating review least you wonder what type of shoddy/haphazard daycare I've chosen), you understand my hesitation about letting the daycare feed her too soon. I did not really press the issue yet, but I'm guessing that the teachers (who watch 10 children at a time) will not be up for microwaving frozen baby food.
Hence my recent interest in all sorts of non-frozen finger foods I can pack for the fusspot. And my commitment to repeat the mantra "They have beautiful, healthy babies here. They have beautiful, healthy babies here." Before freaking out, of course.
Food superstar
The fusspot is 6 months and 10 days old today and we finally gave her real solid food to eat.
I'd rather wait, but given that she starts daycare fulltime in a week or so, I figure it's better for her to have more time eating solids with me or JD watching and my LC (yes, I talk to my lactation consultant almost biweekly. Still. At 6 months) keeps reassuring me that the majority of her calories will continue to come from breastmilk for the first year even if she also has solids.
So what makes her a superstar? Not only did she actually eat a bite (I really am pretty sure about this), but she also managed to grab a handful and stick it up her nose. Superstar, I say.
So what soft but safe finger food did my daughter first consume? Spargel, of course!* It's safe, really cheap (I bought a glass jar of soft white spargel and I figure it should last us at least a week if she eats/mashes/stuffs up her nose 1/3 of a spargel per meal and it is really cheap here). Next week we're on to avocado, which is sadly a good deal messier.
* aka white asparagus for all y'all Americans.
I'd rather wait, but given that she starts daycare fulltime in a week or so, I figure it's better for her to have more time eating solids with me or JD watching and my LC (yes, I talk to my lactation consultant almost biweekly. Still. At 6 months) keeps reassuring me that the majority of her calories will continue to come from breastmilk for the first year even if she also has solids.
So what makes her a superstar? Not only did she actually eat a bite (I really am pretty sure about this), but she also managed to grab a handful and stick it up her nose. Superstar, I say.
So what soft but safe finger food did my daughter first consume? Spargel, of course!* It's safe, really cheap (I bought a glass jar of soft white spargel and I figure it should last us at least a week if she eats/mashes/stuffs up her nose 1/3 of a spargel per meal and it is really cheap here). Next week we're on to avocado, which is sadly a good deal messier.
* aka white asparagus for all y'all Americans.
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